'Doomsday Clock' ticks to five minutes until midnight

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists decided Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012, to tick the 'Doomsday Clock' forward to five minutes to midnight. The BAS noted the challenge of climate change and the lack of progress in reducing the number of nuclear weapons for the change. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

Did you feel a little shudder Tuesday?

If so, maybe it's because the world is
one minute closer to its demise, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
which announced the change to its famous "Doomsday Clock" to five minutes to
midnight.

The
Washington Post reports the BAS cited world leaders' lack of significant
progress in the reduction of nuclear weapons and in developing a comprehensive
response to climate change for the change.

The much-cited clock
was created by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the
first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project. Those scientists formed the BAS
before creating the Doomsday Clock in 1947. According to the BAS website, the
clock uses "the imagery of apocalypse, which is midnight, and the contemporary
idiom of nuclear explosion, which the countdown to zero, to convey threats to
humanity and the planet."

The decision
to move the minute hand of the clock is made by the BAS's Board of Directors
with input with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 18 Nobel Laureates.

"The Clock
has become a universally recognized indicator of the world's vulnerability to
catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and emerging technologies in
the life sciences," a statement on the BAS website says.

Before this year,
the clock had been reset 20 times since 1947, when it was set at seven
minutes until midnight. The closest the clock has gotten to midnight was in 1953 when it was
set at 2 minutes in response to the start of the nuclear arms race. In 1991,
the minute hand move the farthest away - 17 minutes - when the United States and
the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

The last
time the clock was moved forward was in 2007, from seven to five minutes, when
the BAS noted the world was at the brink of a second nuclear age and that humanity
was faced with the challenge of climate change.

In January
2010, the minute hand was pushed back from five to six minutes in response to
global talks on climate change in Copenhagen and promises by several countries
to reduce nuclear stockpiles.